Question

I there a way to get proper serialization of structs in DTO’s or better yet have the framework somehow treat the structs as dto’s.

I have been informed of the JsConfig.TreatValueAsRefTypes value but that would just work for json am I right? what about xml, soap, mq ect…
I simply want to use the structs I have an not have to map them to dto’s which for my project would take years…

On the side not I also cant figure out what im doing wrong with JsConfig.TreatValueAsRefTypes the compiler seems to think its being called in static context:
An object reference is required for the non-static field, method…

Answer 1

I’ve just committed a change (available in the next release) that makes JsConfig<T>.TreatValueAsRefType as static so you can now serialize struct types as a reference type, e.g:

public struct UserStruct
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

JsConfig<UserStruct>.TreatValueAsRefType = true;

var dto = new UserStruct { Id = 1, Name = "foo" };

dto.ToJson().Print(); //= {"Id":1,"Name":"foo"}

dto.ToJsv().Print();  //= {Id:1,Name:foo}

dto.ToXml().Print(); 

ServiceStack uses .NET’s XML DataContractSerializer (which is also used in SOAP) which already serializes structs as expected with:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<UserStruct xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
  xmlns="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/ServiceStack.Text.Tests">
    <Id>1</Id>
    <Name>foo</Name>
</UserStruct>

You can also use the static API to register struct types using the non-generic API:

JsConfig.TreatValueAsRefTypes.Add(typeof(UserStruct));